Still Being Young
by MyMadness
Summary: Still being young, Sam let herself believe the world was possible, because of something as simple as the hand he'd placed on her arm and had not moved. A story that begins as Foyle comes home from America.
1. Chapter 1

_**Still Being Young**_

**_a/n: I have learned something about the things I write. The first time I tackle any fandom, it is pretty easy. Pretty basic. But if I make a second trip in, I go for the more difficult, more totured sort of themes._ **

**_Insert continued appreciation of dancesabove here _**

* * *

Sam was there to meet him at the Southampton docks, as she had cabled she would be. Even knowing he was to expect her, Foyle was unprepared for the sight of her – or what it would do to him. He couldn't think a thing in that moment when he first saw her. All he knew was that he was smiling suddenly, and that there was the strangest tingle of anticipation running crisply through him.

_She's pink in the face_, he noted as he descended the gangplank. _Been out in the wind more than she ought_. He lowered his head and focused on his steps to avoid staring at her.

"Waiting long?" Christopher wondered as he finally reached her.

_Years_, she thought. And something inside of her seemed to leap.

She smiled and rocked – just a little – on her toes, like an older, more sedate version of the energetic woman he had known. Suddenly she half-lurched forward that last two feet, as if the impulse to throw her arms around him had been one she had fought. And lost to.

"So good to see you, Sam. So very good." He risked returning her embrace with his free hand at her waist. He leaned back just as quickly, to tackle what he had worried about for three weeks.

"Your last letter..." _Your last three_, he thought,_ made no mention of Adam or getting married._

They were standing in the way, she noted with a glance over his shoulder. "Over here. Please. Come with me." And he was stupefied by something in her manner, but following her. She was holding his hand tightly and she was leading him toward the bricks of the customs house and the shade there.

"What is it? What's the matter, Sam?"

"Christopher?"

That was how he had signed those letters from America. It was all part of coming to terms with the two of them not being who they had been before. _Because times change,_ he reminded himself sadly. And any future between them would be less formal. Less defined. But also less attached.

She was leaning up against the wall now, still gripping his hand and seeming a tad undone. But then it was quite understandable, he felt. She had hinted that things were not going well with Adam.

The case Foyle had held clunked to the pavement while they stared at each other, but neither paused to look at it.

"Do you know how long I've known you?" she asked enigmatically.

"Yes."

"Down to the day, or to the week, or..."

"Down to the number of months, Sam, quite easily... because I know exactly the day you walked in. _Why_?"

It wasn't just that answer that buoyed her; it was the way he looked at her. His gaze was intense. Concerned and searching.

And still being young, she let herself believe the _world_ was possible, because of something as simple as the hand he'd placed on her arm and had not moved.

_All in_, Sam figured. She kissed him then. Full on the mouth and not at all chastely. There was this one chance, her brain told her. He'd pull away in a second or two, and tell her she had misunderstood. It would be the end of all those fantasies.

He wasn't bolting, she noted, despite how tightly she had closed her eyes. In fact, he kissed her back – at least briefly – she was sure or _fairly_ sure. She felt his weight shift. Registered that his arm had come up and landed on the bricks near her head so that he could steady himself.

And he ended the kiss then. But lingered just those few inches apart from her.

"Miss Stewart," he tried to joke, hoarsely. One eyebrow twitched high.

Her voice came out too sharp. "Not angry, then?"

"Confused. Slightly startled at first, but I think I'm past that. It's been forever since..." he began, with a growing smile. But he stopped and the smile slid away. He would not reveal that: just how long it had been since a woman had surprised him with a kiss like that.

"Sam? You do know that kind of welcome home is not at all de rigueur for old policemen?"

"Don't," she said, quite firmly.

"What?"

"Don't make a joke about your age because I've kissed you. Please. Don't."

He had done too much of that in his letters. Talked about his age. About being past so much. She'd admonished him about it when she'd answered.

Christopher stumbled an apology.

And for her, the swell of emotion made this the moment of truth.

"The plan was..." she said, with a heavy swallow. "I'd kiss you – just amazingly – and then..." She stalled.

"Yes, you've managed that first part."

"Ah..." She allowed herself a quick, relieved smile aimed at her shoes before looking at him quite seriously. "And _then_... after, I'd ask, well, offer to have..."

Suddenly she couldn't finish the sentence she had planned. She couldn't say, 'offer to have an affair with you.'

So, she fell into to telling him, "I'd offer to drive you home."

/


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: Thank you for reading. And for the kind reviews. _

_Please don't hate this or me. But I had this need to push the limits of possible, to have things glaringly different than how I've written them before. Hopefully, all of it is still compelling enough that you will bear with me. And if it remains readable, thank dancesabove. You must blame me for errors, however, as I did fiddle with it after her 'all clear.'_

* * *

/

"Where did you come by this car?" Foyle asked as he stowed his case in the rear seat.

Sam smiled, glad that the conversation had eased away from the kiss or what might be going on with her. "It's from your agency. The one looking after your house. I work for them now."

At first he wore a quizzical look of surprise and then quickly, there was that realization that _nothing_ about Sam should astonish him. She was enchanted. She made things happen.

"An awful lot seems to have changed in the three months I've been gone," he ventured carefully.

"Ninety-six days," she said, as she deftly found the gear she needed.

Foyle turned in his seat to face her more fully and smiled faintly. "Ninety-six days. I counted them, too." After an odd silence, he asked her, "Do you need to get the agency's car back to them?"

"I can do that as late as I please. I took care of all the day's errands before I met you."

He shook his head admiringly. "More organized than ever."

Suddenly, looking at her, Christopher was feeling a bit rash and unsettled. He wanted to ask her if the agent, old Mr. Harris, was in love with her. He couldn't believe that was the thought that had leapt to mind. But perhaps the idea was unavoidable, he told himself as he drank in the sight of her; her hair down, her look so fresh and vibrant. What man wasn't in love with her?

"Mr. Harris just offered you a job?" he said instead.

"Well, yes. I just... I just suggested some things I could do. You know, when I went round to the agency to get the key, as you asked. And he liked my ideas, and… well, he doesn't want to drive around airing places out or watering plants, but thought it worth doing to keep the clients happy."

"And paying."

"Yes."

Finally, after the mostly silent remainder of the drive, they found themselves parked in front of the house in Steep Lane. He invited her in, and once their coats were hanging side by side in the hall, Sam and Foyle passed into his kitchen by silent agreement.

"I laid in a few things for you. Bread and milk and such. There's tea," Sam added. And then they were officially and quite noticeably out of small talk.

He nodded toward the bread while he walked for the stove. And she understood, he noted. But then she almost always did after all these years together. She found a knife and the cutting board while he filled the kettle.

"You haven't said what happened between you and Adam," he ventured as lightly as he could, while he fiddled with the stove.

'_You _happened,' she wanted to say. But that wasn't quite it, really. And she lacked that courage anyway. "It simply ended. Just completely over. In the end, it was nothing short of what could have been a very big mistake."

"There were differences found out?" he asked quite gently.

"Not that," she answered thoughtfully. "Not the glaring differences sort of thing, where one of you wants to stay in and the other would go out every night of the week."

"No?"

"It was more about what _wasn't_ there than what was. I thought I could make there _be_ that something. But... well, the closer we became..." she trailed off vacantly.

"The closer..." Christopher prompted, worriedly. But he saw how uncomfortable she had become. He suspected what had gone wrong was tied to an embarrassing state of intimacy. "Perhaps we should skip talking about Adam and sort out _today._"

"Oh?" The attempt at deflection fell flat and sounded rather jittery. She stopped sawing at the poor loaf of bread under her hand. "You mean, because I kissed you," she finally managed.

"Yes. If it was just an off-handed moment of... um, enthusiasm. Or misplaced..."

"No. Not off-hand. And not misplaced – if by that, you mean I would have preferred to kiss someone else." She caught her breath, or tried to, and then she told him, "And that's not the half of it..."

"No?" he queried cautiously.

She concentrated on affecting a confidence she did not feel as she turned to face him fully. "After what was supposed to be a very winning kiss, I was going to be quite brave and very modern and offer you an affair." It came out as a confession that lacked any hint of seduction.

Given Sam's flattened and defeated tone, Christopher immediately believed that she harbored no real want of him. "A great deal _too_ modern, perhaps," he whispered back. "And you've thought better of it?"

"Yes. No." She shrugged painfully. "I just know I've made a mess of this. Just like I made a mess of things with Adam." She pressed the heel of her hand to her head.

The detective took some pride in not being a timid man, but he found he had to look away, unable to face her. Foyle bit his lip a little harder then, and finally, managed a worried glance at her. "But, an _affair_? I don't know where to start discussing this, Sam."

_At least that was much better than __'No. Off you go, Miss Stewart.' _

"I can't be the first woman to ask you if..." she began.

Foyle gave her a look that should have shamed her. "You have an overactive imagination." He paused to pay needless attention to turning the teacups upright, and then started again. "An affair. As in, something lacking attachment?"

"You don't seem to be interested in something else. Anything serious, I mean. An attachment. In all the years I've known you, you've never..."

"How would any of that be fair to you?" he asked quickly in an attempt to cut off her speculation.

"It's what I want."

He decided then, quite sadly, that this was some sort of reaction over the broken engagement with Adam. "You _want _a relationship with a man, but a lack of attachment?"

She shook her head and her words were subdued. "No. I want to be with _you_. On _your_ terms."

"And Adam? Things are final between you two?" His tone was doubtful, more doubtful than he meant it to sound.

"Very final." She looked down. "It is not a very nice thing to explain to the man you somehow have found yourself engaged to. That what should be a very... full relationship feels empty. Even despite what should be something _very_ intimate."

Sam risked a look back at him, wondering if her confession was clear enough. Or, perhaps, too clear. "Do you… know what I mean?"

'_Very intimate...'_ his brain echoed. This was what she had hinted at before. She meant, he suspected from the look in her eye, that she had kissed Adam the way she had kissed him. With that passion and abandon. But more than that, she had allowed the relationship to become more physical. And, in searching out something she thought was missing, she had found nothing there.

"I went to bed with Adam," she finally blurted out in confirmation, her eyes averted. "And since I think that's why I'm not marrying him, why I'm avoiding that mistake, I don't know if I'm ashamed or… or not."

She felt her face flush, and she was thankful for the hint of shadows in the room.

"If you are waiting for me to scold you, Sam, it isn't going to happen. I don't have the right. I'm more worried that _you_ seem upset over what happened."

"I am. Over the whole mess, really."

"Do you want to tell me about it? Ah... in general terms," Foyle hastened to add, "Not about the..."

And thank God, she laughed at his awkward misstep. She recovered a moment later from the unintended humor and the general embarrassment. He was still waiting for his blush to fade.

"With Adam," she began with some obvious thought, "something was just off, not right. It was all very cordial and polite. And we got along – as if we were family, really. But there was never that... well, mad, harried, I-might-be-sick sort of feeling." She paused to look at him quite seriously. "Doesn't that happen, that feeling, to other people?" she asked him so desperately.

It did, he knew. It had happened to him a few times in his life. But he would not admit it – not to this vulnerable, confused young thing. He wouldn't tell her there were moments when he was very much mad and harried, and feeling rather ill and foolish.

Or that it was, quite impossibly, because of her.

/ / / /


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N: __Long overdue. I apologize. I allowed myself to get sidetracked by George Gently. A lovely man in desperate need of... well, you know. So, the first new George Gently fic to hit FF in about 2 years is up. Three stories in the hopper. Bad, bad idea._

_My thanks to dancesabove and to all of you who read and tell me what you think, as well. Knowing folks are out there makes writing possible._

* * *

"_With Adam," she began, with some obvious thought, "something was just off; not right. It was all very cordial and polite. And we got along – as if we were family, really. But there was never that... well, mad, harried, I-might-be-sick sort of feeling." She paused to look at him quite seriously. "Doesn't that happen, that feeling, to other people?" she asked him so desperately._

_It did, he knew. It had happened to him a few times in his life. But he would not admit it – not to this vulnerable, confused young thing. He wouldn't tell her there were moments when he was very much mad and harried, and feeling rather ill and foolish._

_Or that it was, quite impossibly, because of her._

And so Christopher only nodded to reassure her.

"If I ruin things..." Sam said, tensely. "If you never want to see me because of this, and I lose you..."

"You won't," he tried to promise. The roughness to his voice heartened rather than frightened her.

She managed a small smile. "I should go. I can't..." she stammered.

"Sit down, Sam," he heard himself say. His hand reached out for hers decisively and he brought her to sit at the table. Once he had the tray set, he carried it over to join her.

/ / / / / /

There was their silence while he poured. That only continued as Sam then rocked the liquid in her cup back and forth.

He stirred his tea and stole a look at her. He could see she was nervous. To his eyes, she was her old girlish self in some moments like this, then a whole new woman in others.

A sigh rose up from her, and she smiled ruefully. Visibly, then, she became that woman who'd been brave enough to approach him. Sam leaned a little further across the table, smiled a little more broadly.

"It's you I want to be with. It has been you... all along."

Any tone of anxious confession was gone from her voice. What she was saying seemed to make her... _happy._ And he could not reconcile that with the confusion he felt.

"I – I don't believe you," he said, seeming perturbed. He didn't know how anything else said today could possibly stun him, but he felt a sort of fog threaten his mind's workings. He grasped for an explanation, a rational way through this. "I think all of this has more to do with breaking off the _–_"

She looked more confident than he had ever known her to be, as she shook her head to cut him off. "No," Sam told him resolutely. "You are _afraid_ to believe me. It would certainly be far _easier_ not to believe me. Because this would risk everything... change everything. But I think you know that I mean this."

"It was not that long ago that you were engaged to another man," he told her pointedly.

"Because I made a mistake. I had wanted things to be easy. That was what I did wrong," she said. "I wanted to love the man who loved me. To do what people expected. But finally, I knew I couldn't marry Adam – no matter how alone I'd be. And even though it meant facing all the guilt of having said yes to him."

Sam steeled herself to bring up the worst of it; the part she thought was a stumbling block for him.

"And yes, we ended up in bed together, which solved nothing. Just made it all more dreadful and awkward. As well as obvious to me that it was a mistake."

She didn't think he seemed embarrassed over her comment. A horrible, immature part of her admitted that she wouldn't have minded if Foyle had seemed a bit jealous. Instead his look struck Sam as one of concern. There was a patrician and Victorian want to stand by her, take her part. And she saw all of that in the tense flex of muscles across that face that she knew so well.

"Christopher, you are sweet, dear God. But I don't want you to blame him. To think I am naïve." She paused. "My fall was my own," she said, a tad too melodramatically. "He did not lure me to bed," she admitted.

Foyle was not sure which would have been worse, a Sam who had been rather badly used or this one who acknowledged having been quite willing. He closed his eyes a moment. And like a sad old man surrounded by his regrets, all he could think was that he wanted to change time. Be younger. Go back. Be what Adam had been to her.

"You need time to get over this... to get over Adam," he finally told her.

"That's not it. You won't believe me, will you?" she objected with a shake of her head. "I should have done it – propositioned you – a long time ago, if I had only had the courage. Or if I had only understood the way I was feeling." She paused then, her eyes drifting across the table top as she considered how to explain this. "There was a movie I saw while you were away," she surprised him by saying. "Do you ever _think_ about a book or a movie?"

"All the conversations that we've had?" he replied with a raised eyebrow. "You must know I have..."

"But I mean, think about it, and how it's like you and your life... something that personal, you didn't usually talk about."

"I couldn't, Sam. It isn't done! Policemen riding around, talking about their feelings?" He had a look on his face that was somehow both tortured and amused. "Being with you made me want impossible things, more real conversations. You made me want to skip off from work and sit with you. To not hear the word 'sir' again..."

She squeezed his hand over that.

"The movie was _Brief Encounter._ With Trevor Howard. Do you know the story?" she said, after she had given him a small smile.

"The basics. Two married people meet and are attracted to each other..."

In her impatience Sam cut him off again. "It's worse. You see, it was the real love of her life. At least, that was what I thought. She meets the _real _love of her life, but it's too late. She's already married to someone else. Not to a bad man. Just... the wrong man."

"You decided Adam was the wrong man." The part Christopher is missing, Sam thought sadly, is that _he_ is the right one.

Still she nodded. "Because I liked being with Adam. But I didn't mind when he left. Because I don't want to kiss him... _hard,_ as if I can never get close enough. It was just a general sort of unease I felt over life, I think, that made me accept his proposal. Not any real passion. But I tried to convince myself..."

"Why?"

Sam shrugged sadly. It had been so much easier when she had discussed this with her mother. The woman had understood. Had guessed it all. But her former boss couldn't see it. Could not realize how scared and weak she sometimes felt.

"It was just before I met Adam that I told myself I had to grow up. Give up on... fairy tales. _You_ had moved on after the war," Sam said. "Everyone had. And I needed to do the same." She pushed at her hair and smiled as if a bit ashamed. "The war was over," she tried to explain. "And we were all supposed to get on with our lives. But that really _was _my life, the war. With all that gone, I was left... well, adrift. And... then... do you remember when we stood up with the Milners?"

Even with no more said, Foyle knew what she meant, that morning in the church. The powerful moments that made up Clementine's christening.

"At the font, side by side."

"Side by side," Sam said lowly. "God help me, we stood there, and there was so much hope, so much future in what the vicar said. And I thought, for just those moments... I let myself believe..."

He squeezed his eyes shut. It hurt to hear this, to know where it was going. "Oh, Sam."

"I let myself believe," she forged on, "that this wonderful, hopeful future was supposed to be as it was in that church."

"You and me," Foyle whispered.

"Together. But all of that, that fantasy, just vanished when we hit the sunshine outside. You seemed more stiff and aloof than you had ever been, and suddenly it all felt foolish and impossible."

"I am not the best with church ceremonies."

"No," she said, with half a laugh. "It was that I looked at you and had to face that things were no different. You were still 'Mr. Foyle,' and I was everyone's jumbled-feeling acquaintance. And I felt very shoddy for wanting those things I'd imagined," she smiled sheepishly. "Especially for conjuring it all while standing in a church! And I convinced myself that all my thoughts of you had been something I needed to give up."

"I did no better by you, when I then nearly got you shot," he said, in a perverse attempt to lighten the mood.

"No, I almost got _you_ shot! We certainly got Adam shot! Which gives the three of us a strange little history..."

"Please, Sam," he winced.

"Then, later, in all my moments alone, I was left to realize that I am almost _thirty_..." she added, by way of explanation.

Quite unconsciously he made an amused little noise over her age.

"Oh, scoff! But _you_ weren't still trying to figure out what to do at my age. It has felt as if the most important bit of my life is over. As if I were losing you. I felt childish clinging to you. Clamoring for every chance to see you."

"And I felt an old fool every time I forced my way back into your new life."

Something in her eyes thanked him for that. It was a look he had missed.

"And Adam was there, with enough enthusiasm for two, really," she continued. "I got caught up in it, in how in love he could make me feel..."

"When you really weren't in love with him," Christopher ventured.

"Exactly." Sam's expression was briefly sad as she put her empty cup back down. "If I had understood that you should hang on to fairy tales, I would have. Insecurities and the rest of the world be damned," she mused with a crooked little expression.

When he asked her then to sit with him in the front room, it came as a quiet murmur that matched the blanketing shadows.

/ / / / / /

Sam followed him to the far side of the room, but did not sit just yet. His back was to her as he moved to adjust the wireless. She let emotion guide her; let her need for comfort free her to stand behind him and rest her head on his shoulder for a moment. It surprised her when he found her hand and drew it around him to hold it at his chest.

"It's going to be all right, Sam," he said at a hush.

"You've said that to me... so many times over the years."

"Mm-hmm," he agreed quietly.

"And you've been right… a few times at least," she teased.

"When it comes to you, Sam, I'll always want things to be right. For you to be happy."

Christopher noted that this was easier somehow now, better than their conversation at the table. Better than so much they had tried to talk about today. His eyes were on the wall and he could have the conversation as if he were only speaking his thoughts aloud and alone. But this was also better (so very much better) because there was the feel of her, the hand he would not release. And then, the reward of her head placed once again on his shoulder.

"It all seems so utterly ridiculous now – my plan for when you came home, I mean," she almost whispered in his ear. "Propositioning you like that. Nothing apparently kills the desire for..."

_She meant sex_, he knew. _That nothing kills the desire for sex as much as talking about it. _

One finger in his collar, he loosened things further. _Not always true,_ he thought with a bemused twitch of his lips. And lowly then, he found himself asking, "But apparently talking about Adam kills your... libido?"

"Yes."

"Good," he said, and he turned to face her.

She was confused, too unsure to be at all hopeful. "Good?" she merely echoed, searching his face.

He said nothing, but continued to study her. She found it difficult at times that this man seemed to be thinking, always thinking.

She was the one to break the silence first. "Just… tell me. Get it over with."

"Tell you?" He looked confused.

"That it's hopeless." She dropped her head for a moment, in that shy way she still had after all these years. "It's hopeless, because if you had wanted to be with a woman you would have brought one to all of those functions or nights out. Because I watched. I _tried_ to notice. I needed to know if there was someone. Was there, and I missed it?"

"Is it hopeless? Oh, most likely," he opined, as lightly as he could. "But, there was no one, Sam, because I was already with the only woman I wanted to be with."

"Oh." And it was her turn to be quite stunned.

His face turned worried then. Until it seemed he could take no more of the storm inside of him. He leaned into her slowly. And the kiss he gave her was hard. But tight and troubled. His hands didn't seem to know just how he should hold her. Christopher was blatantly out of practice, but quite unwilling to opt for caution.

His voice cracked slightly, once he spoke. "That is what I wanted to do, once I knew we were safe that day in London, in the basement. Dear God, I have wanted to do that. But," and he stressed his next words, even as he fought to calm himself, "I _won't_ have an affair with you."

Her misunderstanding flashed across her face. What was he saying? she was nervously wondering. That he was past the type of need she felt? Or that he was afraid it was something he couldn't manage emotionally?

Tense and afraid, she waited for some clarity.

He swallowed hard and then gave her hope as his hand reached to stroke sensually at her neck, fingers trailing just inside the edge of her blouse.

But his words sounded quite final. "You need to go home, Sam."

She smiled weakly, acknowledging the impasse they had reached. There were just a few words as she put on her coat with his help, and eased out the door.

Alone then, he knew he should ring Andrew to let him know that he was back in Hastings, safe and sound. But Christopher felt so uneasy that it would be, he decided, unwise.

Foyle believed he was a settled, successful man. Lucky, in that he had been blessed with a certain amount of intelligence and savvy. Those things had gotten him through so many difficult times. A few gifts, and hard work, had brought him to today.

But today, he had somehow completely, just completely, lost his footing.


	4. Chapter 4

_A/N: Thanks everyone. I would only sit and ruminate on these ideas and fantasies of mine if I did not have lovely people who professed to enjoying them. I am hoping this is at least a little bit original without being too odd. _

_My thanks and apologies to dancesabove. Yes. That means I mucked about with this chapter when she wasn't looking. _

* * *

His sleeves roughly thrust up, Christopher drew himself a bath. And he made it hotter than it needed to be, as if he would cook some sense into himself.

As he sank into the water with a raw and tired groan, he wondered what to make of the day.

It had been a rousing disaster or, perhaps, a catastrophic success; he amused himself by thinking in that twisted fashion.

God help him, he had had Sam here, her skin warm beneath his desperate touch. Her kisses so eager, hopeful. Real.

Even better than the ones he had fantasied about. And he had sent her away, unwilling to either end things or pursue them...

Because there was entirely too much at stake, the man reminded himself. So, tonight's indecision had been quite understandable. He needed to know just what was right for Sam. What was fair to her. And how could he have decided even something as simple as what to have for dinner when she had leant up against him, telling him the status quo of polite conversation and politer boundaries could be completely gone? That he need only say the word to...

Sam had no idea what she had done, he was sure. But she had made a near-quivering fool of him. He had sent her away, yes. Because what else is a man to do, when those things that are happening are the same things that his brain had promised him were impossible?

For far too long, Foyle had managed each day with her by assuring himself that she would never – in a sane world – see him as she professed to now. He had thought himself further protected by the fact that Sam Stewart had _never_ wanted for suitors and had been an engaged woman when he had left the country.

And even in those moments when that sane world gave way to his fantasies, he had closed out his wayward thoughts by telling himself that he was simply too old for her.

"Why?" he said aloud. Why would she do this, and now? Why had he let the fantasy play out so dangerously long tonight? He didn't know.

He sank under the water of the bath and gave up on answers. But he didn't need to worry about being out of ideas he trusted.

Less than a mile away, Sam had assessed the same day. She fixed on what to do with that alarming sort of surety that comes when one decides fairy tales are possible, that those promises we make ourselves are worth keeping. And as she closed her eyes and thought of him, there was that certainty that comes not so much with being young, as with knowing that you are young enough to love someone quite completely.

/ / / / /

The next morning Christopher was still finishing dressing when he heard the knock from downstairs. He was distracted enough with his braces and the state of his hair that he did not even let himself hope or think as he opened the door.

"Just stopping in for a minute or two. Not to worry," a smiling Sam half-teased. She kissed him then, quite chastely, as if it was merely part of her greeting, because she knew he would need reassurance that she was not there to rearrange his life or complicate his day with more confessions and offers. "I was just feeling impulsive this morning."

"Impulsive? You?" he said, a twisted little smirk flashing across his mouth.

"Oh, not fair," she scolded, with a quick and unaccustomed tug at his shirt. "Is it so horrible that I would want to see you? That I have this notion that my whole day might go better if I just talk with you a minute or two this morning?"

He thought on it, and knew deep down that he felt the same way.

"No. It's not horrible," he conceded, nodding to point the way towards the kitchen. "Do you have time? I haven't put the kettle on yet."

"I can't stay," she surprised him by saying.

Her visit lasted only ten minutes, but he found that he smiled the whole morning over it.

As the afternoon wore on, he discovered that the idea of evening without her troubled him some. It bothered him to have darkness creep over the place, as if it were something physical that weighed him down and would keep her from getting to him.

Had he not felt entirely too old and desperate before that, sitting there in the dark made those feelings complete.

A few minutes later Sam was at his door, and he was certain the relief of seeing her was written all over his face. He stepped back to have her come in from the cold. She walked into the foyer, but made no move to take off her coat, he noted.

"How was your day?" Sam asked. She was smiling and happy, as if the whole of their relationship had not been upended yesterday.

"Fine. Fine. Just catching up on things around here."

She kissed him on the cheek. And when he did not object, or flinch, or move at all away, she read his mind and kissed him softly on the mouth.

"How was your day, Sam?" he whispered.

"Lovely," she said, as her eyes fluttered open. And he wondered, quite self-servingly, if she were remarking on the kiss and not her time working with Mr. Harris. "But I don't want to overstay my welcome. I just wanted... needed to..." She smiled shyly and brushed at the lipstick that she'd left on his cheek. "I'm glad you're home. No matter what. Home and safe."

He didn't know what to say. The whole of this scene was nothing short of surreal to his rather staid policeman's brain.

He nodded. Knew that he was smiling faintly and, against his better judgement, leaning towards her. She took the initiative then. Again. "Goodnight, Christopher," she told him, as he stood there, half bewildered and wholly aching for her touch.

And then she was gone.

With agitation, Christopher paced across the front room and back. Twice. And then strode hard for the kitchen. He put the kettle on. Took it off. Emptied it. And finally slapped himself lightly in the head, as if that might help. He was beyond relieved when the telephone rang to rescue him from himself.

Christopher had to smile to hear his son's cheerful voice on the other end of the line.

"How is Sam?" Andrew asked, after their initial greetings and confirmations of each other's good health.

"I thought you were checking on _me_," his father joked.

"Oh, I get all my intel on _you_ from her and vice versa. Neither of you would ever admit anything was wrong. Well, she did, finally – I mean over the engagement. Bad business."

"When was it that that ended, exactly?" Christopher asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

"Oh, almost two months ago," Andrew said. "It really rattled her. I could tell. I used to ring her up once a week just to see how she was keeping, after that. I thought she seemed better the last couple of weeks. She's been looking forward to you coming home. She was so happy you were getting back, and she said she was going to meet you at the dock."

"Yes, she met me."

"Did you have a good talk? I figured that was what she needed... to talk to you."

Christopher smiled at the awkward memories. "Yes. We talked. It was..."

"I could come out this weekend to see you; take her out," an enthusiastic Andrew put in. "Do you think that might cheer her up?"

"I don't think you need to rush out to see Sam. I think she will work through this. She needs time." _**We**__ need time_, he thought. _Because I frankly have no blessed idea what is going on._ "You forget how to deal with change when you get older. But Sam..." he trailed off.

"What, Dad?"

Christopher didn't really mean to say the rest of his thoughts out loud, but he did. "Sam is so young."

"Well, of course she is young. She's about my age."

The elder man shook his head, a woeful smile on his face. He wouldn't say what he wanted to. Something like, _'No, Andrew. She's young in a way you aren't. It's not about years. It's about possibilities. Sam believes in things others give up on.'_

Andrew covered the silence. "I'm glad you are there for her, Dad. You will let her talk to you about things if she needs to, right? I know that might not be the kind of thing..."

Christopher gripped his head, again glad that this conversation was not happening in person.

"We'll see," Foyle said. He could not imagine that his son would welcome knowing just how badly he wanted to be with Sam… or in what way. Or how eager he was to talk and, then, pointedly _not_ to talk with Sam, when they saw each other now. Certainly, Andrew would not guess how easy Sam wanted to make that fall into an affair that she had offered.

"She couldn't manage with you gone. I thought it was..."

"We've gotten used to each other, I suppose," Christopher offered quickly. "Used to having each other around."

"That's what she said. Just how odd it was, you being gone three months. That you had never been half that long without seeing each other. Dad... you don't think she's _too_ devoted to you?"

"Devoted?" Christopher seemed to grow rankled at the word. "I wouldn't think it goes so far as that..."

"If you can't even see that there is at least a little bit of hero worship going on, then you are completely the wrong person to know what is what with Sam," his son tried to joke. "But do try to be understanding. Not be the boss, you know."

"Any more instructions for the old man, Andrew?" he asked when he was done wincing.

"Nah. But I'll come out. See you both." Andrew laughed quickly then. "I'll straighten you both out."

The young man had absolutely no idea what he was saying, Christopher thought with a sad shake of his head. And he needed to put him off.

"No. I might be out to your neck of the woods soon enough, Andrew. Some opportunities. People I need to talk with. Things your uncle has been trying to fix up for me."

"You still thinking about making the move to intelligence?" Andrew asked, sounding intrigued.

"We'll see," his father allowed. "Everything is a bit... confused just now."


	5. Chapter 5

_**A/N:**_

_**Enjoying the sounds of Scrooge behind me. Okay, I turn around when the bits with Albert Finney in his shirt sleeves come on. :) He was kinda cute. Okay. I'm fickle.**_

_**I have been wrapped around the axel (that is a strange expression I picked up in the military) on what to do with this chapter and with this story. I am looking at rewriting tons of it. Tossing out a lovely Greek rice pudding bit. But I am all backwards and round the bend on this. (I just made that combo expression up this minute.) :)**_

_**But I shan't sulk because I have lovely people that read what I write! Thank you!**_

_**And thanks to dancesabove.**_

* * *

The morning visits that followed were quite similar. And they were light and almost easy, with a definite time limit that avoided any entanglements or conversational entrapments.

Sam came by early each day, always cheerful and always looking entirely too beautiful. When she could, she sat with him over a pot of tea before work. There were gentle kisses in greeting and then one as she left for work.

"Could I see you tonight?" she would whisper at the door, without fail.

"Yes," Foyle would allow.

It was a habit they repeated for the rest of that week.

In the evenings, Sam was painfully careful not to stay too long. He saw her keep an obvious eye on the time. _Did she view him as that fragile?_ he wondered. _Or perhaps she viewed things between them like that?_

It was the evenings that were tougher to navigate, they both found. There were admissions, quiet and strained. His small statements, as well as hers. Each saying they missed the other, or enjoyed even needed the time together. But there was never any resolution.

Saturday, when she appeared on his doorstep, he had his fantasy that she might ask to spend the better portion of the day with him. And he knew he would say 'yes' and walk with her down to the seaside, despite the chill. There, he would kiss her by the water. His hands would rest warmly inside her coat. He could see it all even as he guided her over the threshold.

But his dream fell apart when she told him she had to work. There were people returning from abroad to meet. "All part of the service..." she said.

"Harris has you working weekends, too?" he asked. He brought her to the front room, subconsciously wanting her further from the front door and leaving. He took the coat she'd draped over her arm and threw it on a chair.

"I get so few hours as it is, the extra money helps," Sam explained with a shrug and an apologetic smile. She started to turn away from him, then stopped and took a light hold of his sleeve, the way an insecure child might. And fixed her eyes on his hand in her avoidance of his eyes. "Are you disappointed?" she wondered intently, while she tugged at him. She almost held her breath as she waited to know.

"Yes," Christopher said at last. "I am." Something in his tone told her he was surprised by this development.

Her smile was shy, but brilliant. She _knew_ it didn't mean he loved her. It didn't mean they would ever be a couple in any sense.

But he wanted her here. There was at least that. He wanted her with him, and in exactly what way she didn't care just now.

Sam took a deep breath and made her admission. "I pushed too hard, before... when you first got home. With that horrid shocker of mine. The offer and all my confessions. I'm sorry."

His eyes lilted sideways. "You did rather cut to the chase," he smirked.

"I don't always think things..."

Foyle gave up a quick, small laugh, one that was obviously kindly meant.

He surprised her then, not letting her finish her self-recrimination. His hand tipped her chin, and he kissed her more deeply than he ever had before.

As she kissed him back, responded to him, he felt a pulse in his veins - a pulse that begged him to believe that life together could be as easy as kissing her. It whispered to him. Convinced him in that moment that he was a new man because of her; not one whose time was already more than half spent.

And when they paused, both out of breath, the moment seemed to demand some sort of clarification.

There was a false start from Sam before she managed, "You said that you wouldn't have an affair with me." It was a leading statement, one that was looking for a reason that he'd suddenly seem so passionate.

God knew there were a thousand things to tell her. And he felt capable of none of them.

All he would say in reply was, "I did. I said that." His sentence finished in a lovely sort of growl.

His brain assessed how he felt in that moment, assessed what should have been an embarrassing shift in him. That new man paused to wonder if he should lament what was lost. Because there had been stability in being Detective Chief Superintendent Foyle; in being someone who knew right from wrong, and who acted quite properly.

And that stability and propriety were evaporating.

_You always knew what to hide and bottle up, even when it was love, _he thought, despite working to hold her tighter. _And you are old enough, wise enough to let her go_. _Now, before it turns ridiculous._

_But,_ that wanting part of him complained, _she is saying she doesn__'__t want to go_.

_Feel this. __The way she is against you?_ _She is asking that things not stay bottled any longer._

"These mornings are going to be the death of me," he whispered hoarsely.

"Why?" She wanted so badly for him to tell her, to have him admit he felt the sort of need that she was now feeling roil through her.

"Why?!" The emotion creased his face. Made his muscles tense. "Because you come here. Beautiful and..." _'__Looking like you need to be taken to bed,__'_ he wanted to say. "You kiss me. And you give me 10 minutes or 30, and I want... I want the day."

Sam swallowed hard. She had so wished for him to say that he wanted her with him overnight. Or with some permanence. _Any_ sort. Still, she sensed the change in him.

As she gauged what seemed to be a war within him, she found the courage to ask him something that had bothered her for weeks now. "Why were you in America so long? Over three months. Was it all just spent on those loose ends?"

He looked caught out. Not a look she was used to in him.

"I needed time."

"Time?" she pressed gingerly.

"To get used to... things."

She caught his cheek in her hand as he unconsciously tried to turn away. "Christopher," she whispered.

"You had been _my_ Sam. Always. In one way, if not in another. You weren't, anymore, suddenly. But I know I can't keep you. I can't have just anything I want," he told her firmly. "That isn't the way life works."

He met her eyes at last, and he could see how badly she wanted to refute everything he'd said. She wore it all in her expression: how much she wanted to tell him again that there was a certain offer on the table. Her grip of his shirt was compelling him to believe that she was something he could have, if she could just have a bit of him in return.

"You're wrong," she told him.

There was some frustration then, and maybe some anger at the world, in the kiss that she gave him.

Christopher yielded to her. To her dissatisfied hands and her demanding mouth. He took her tighter against him and silently, desperately begged her to demand still more. Content to behave no longer, his fingers found a sliver of skin at the bottom edge of her blouse to stroke and gently tease.

He steered her a few steps, and she moved with him too eagerly. When he broke from her, it was only so he could sit on the couch. And without a word, he pulled her down to lie on him as he reclined to have his head on the pillow at the corner. There was a quick flood of unease in Sam's eyes over this newness. He knew that the impatient part of her wanted to question and fix things, to push everything out in the open.

And he needed her just to be with him. Quiet and close. And his. "Shh," he insisted. "My darling Sam."

He petted at her hair and just held her as she looked into his eyes. Unconsciously he began tracing the limits of her bra through her blouse, before resting his touch on the soft wool of her trousers. Then his hips angled up into hers in yet another action he had failed to think quite through.

She closed her eyes and stuttered something he didn't catch.

Did she need him to back off, to slow down? Or did she suddenly find the idea of being with him like this just too ludicrous?

"What is it, Sam?"

"Just..."

"Just?"

"Just like that..." she said, in a voice that seemed to drip out of her.

Finally, there were no more questions written on her face, and she relaxed into him.

It was perfect. The way she bit at her lip. The way her eyes crinkled with a sort of timid charm. And it couldn't last.

A moment on, Sam groaned in a way that sounded unhappy not with him, but with reality. And he knew what she would say. She had to leave. Mr. Harris expects her, _expected_ her, 10 minutes ago.

But ignoring the pull of the world, and feeling possessive and unreasonable, Foyle rolled her over as if he would not let her go. He pressed to her for just a moment. She didn't flinch. Didn't shy away, despite how undeniably sexual the situation had become. But then, what had he expected her to do? He wondered. Was he trying to test the situation? To push her to come to her senses?

Shouldn't one of them find his senses?

"This wouldn't change things for the better. You know that," the old man in him told her. "Things like this go wrong all too often. You know _that_, too. In spades. And I won't take you to bed for the wrong reason, or for no reason at all."

Sam immediately stilled, stiffened with the shock of what he had said.

"There _is_ a right reason. Why can't you believe that?" she implored him, shifting further away. "And there has been a reason behind _all_ of what I've done. No matter what a mess I've made of things. I just didn't think you would want to _hear_ the reason."

"Sam..."

"I am completely in love with you. I have been," she complained in a voice both hurt and angry.

Foyle froze there on top of her. It wasn't just the words, but the way she had said them. So desperate. And he felt like an idiot for having handled this so badly.

She nearly dumped him to the floor on her way off the couch.

"Sam," he pleaded, struggling to find his feet.

"Can't you see that even before you came back, everything had already changed?" she entreated him as she put more distance between them. "You admit you were hiding in America. I had broken off my engagement and then racked my brain at how to approach you. And... and God help me, this is not the way I wanted to tell you. Because I have been afraid to tell you."

"A-afraid?" he stuttered, with a shake of his head.

"Afraid that you wouldn't believe me, because you think I don't know my mind after Adam. And I've had to worry that if you _did_ believe me, that you would pity me. That you would tell me you were sorry that you couldn't love me in return." Embarrassed and reeling, she continued to move for the door, roughly snatching up her coat as she went. "I have to go."

"Tell me you'll come by. Please. Right after work. I don't want to leave it like this," he begged quickly.

"We'll see."

"I've got things wrong this morning. Everything... just badly wrong," he said sorrowfully.

"Actually," Sam said, sounding even sadder, "I had thought you were getting so much right... at first."

She slid out the door before he could even decide what that meant.


	6. Chapter 6

_Gah! I so want this to go well. But it seems slipperier (Lord, that's a horrendous looking word) and slipperier. _

_And if this was our night to catch up on old episodes of The Office (US), Michael Scott would say, "That's what she said."_

_Kids are driving me right, right round the bottle, and so I really have no idea what the heck this chapter says or means any more. Do let me know if it does seem to say or mean nothing. I am hoping it is more satisfying that those tiny packages of sugar free jello. _

_Yes, My Foyle is perhaps a year or two younger than your Foyle. And a bit younger than Our MK. _

_Thank you, dancesabove. And whatever happened, happened. I dunno._

* * *

When Sam knocked on the door in Steep Lane after her Saturday duties, it was Andrew who answered.

"All right, Sam?" the young man had reason to wonder.

"I-I just wasn't expecting you to be here, is all," she said, her eyebrows high. She took a step back. "You caught me by surprise. When did you get in?"

"About 8:30... on the train."

_Thirty whole minutes after I left Christopher, _she thought with a wince. _Oh_, _I bet he was a sight. I bet I am, too._

"So... what are you doing here?" she asked, plainly still not recovered.

Andrew laughed. "Just an impulsive thing."

"That word is seeing far too much use," Sam muttered, as she finally came all the way in. "How's your father, Andrew?" she asked carefully.

"Well, he's in a state. But _I_ didn't say that." He winked and then hollered down the hall. "It's Sam, Dad!"

Andrew led the way into the kitchen, where Christopher was drying a cup with excessive care and forced distraction.

Foyle barely greeted Sam, and indeed seemed horribly out of sorts. "Why don't you go change your shirt, Andrew, or at least find a tie," he said with a motion of his head, "and we'll all go out for dinner." Christopher forced a smile.

"All right, Dad." Andrew moved off quickly.

Sam and Christopher stared at each other as they registered Andrew's footsteps on the stairs. It was strange, suddenly, to greet each other without any kiss or touch. Sam wished she had pockets to thrust her hands in, as they felt oddly heavy and spare just now.

"I'm relieved you are here," Christopher said with a step towards her. "I want to apologize. And we need to talk, obviously. But this probably isn't the right time..."

"No. I am the one who is going to apologize," she said resolutely. "I started it. I was the one to bring all that up about what... could be between us. Blindsided you when you were right off the ship, never explaining myself quite properly, and getting it all muddled. I can't be cross at you for bringing up what _I_ had already brought up."

"But..."

"But," she said firmly, "if you tell me dinner is a bad idea, I can simply make my excuses when Andrew comes down."

"Stay. Please," he whispered.

/ / / / / /

The three of them shared a quiet, slightly tense dinner out. Andrew tried hard to be a happy influence on the group, but he showed his unease at failing.

The two men walked Sam back to her flat at the end of the evening. She hugged Andrew quickly as he joked with her.

"I'll make it all up to you," Andrew said, his manner overly charming and almost suggestive. "Just tell me what you want to do. Dancing. Dinner. Really, Sam."

"No, truly, Andrew. I'm fine." She looked over at Christopher, who was fiercely ruminating on something and seeming quite far away.

"Well, goodnight," she tried, backing away. Even she knew the words sounded lost and feeble.

Christopher walked on with Andrew as if they would leave. But then he stopped, tapping himself in the chest like a man who had just remembered something. "Just... give me a minute, Andrew." He turned to find that Sam had not moved. She stood watching him from the steps of her flat, keys in hand.

It was a ploy, Sam knew; one she was eager for, one that should at least give them 10 feet of distance from his son. God knows, that bit of space seemed to be more than they'd had all night. Christopher stepped up to her and dropped his head before managing to get his words out. "Sam? I'm sorry. Still. Maybe tomorrow..."

"It's all right. I'm all right," she insisted.

"Well, _I'm_ not," he quipped. There was his ironic smile as he looked at her at last. His words seemed full of secret meaning. And at least some hope.

Sam gave up half a laugh, but looked shaky. "Tomorrow then," she managed. But as she tried to make herself release the hold she had taken on his coat, all she could think was, _Could I ever possibly make him feel as undone as he does me?_

"I doubt we'll be able to talk properly... tomorrow," he added.

"No, but I'll get to see you." she said, mournfully dropping her hand from his coat at last.

He decided then that he would heal what he could. Not leave her to worry until he could explain better. And so he kissed her on the cheek. But it was the way his hand kept hold of the fabric at her waist that was more telling.

And for Andrew, that was not the first strange occurrence of the evening.

Christopher's attention snapped back as if he was just then realizing they had an audience. He turned to see his son watching them closely. In that moment, Christopher suspected that Andrew could sense the difference between him and Sam. As careful as they had been, there was no hiding the change between them. The unease was certainly plain, as was the longing for contact.

It was sadly ironic, the detective decided, that the potential for joy would cause a problem, when Andrew had professed all these years that he wanted Christopher happy.

The silence, once the Foyle men were alone, was painful, trippingly obvious. They walked towards Steep Lane, until Andrew suddenly stopped on the pavement to lay a hand on his father's sleeve.

"What's going on, Dad?"

"What do you mean?"

"You and Sam," his son said tensely.

Christopher shrugged unconvincingly. "Really. It's much as it was."

Andrew would not be taken for a fool. "Dad," the younger man insisted, his doubting plain. "Please, Dad."

"The truth is, I don't know. Really..." Christopher groaned and then scratched at his forehead, suddenly weary of hearing his own voice.

The enigmatic answer only made Andrew more apprehensive.

"She just broke off an engagement," he said unhelpfully.

"Yes," Foyle answered. "Senility is not so far advanced in me that I had failed to notice."

Andrew squinted at his father, as if reading something hidden in the poor attempt at humor... and the young man did not believe or like what he saw. "And you've already... It isn't true, you haven't..."

"What?!" his father asked impatiently.

His son's mouth gapped a few times before he could trust the words to come out properly. "You haven't… started something with her."

There was an unpleasant silence then. And the less perturbed Christopher seemed by Andrew's accusation, the further the younger man's thoughts ran. "God, you haven't..." Andrew needn't have finished the sentence; Foyle knew what he meant. And how distressed the thought of any intimacy between the pair made his son.

"I'm not having this conversation, Andrew," was the flat reply.

"You won't even deny it!?" His son took two steps back as if physically reeling or needing his distance.

"Because I'm not discussing this. Sam would thank you, I am sure, to leave off the topic as well!"

"This is not a good time for her to make decisions. She's vulnerable. She's just had things with Adam fall apart," Andrew said, his voice rising now.

Christopher knew he had visibly winced at the mention of Adam, and worse, he knew that Andrew hadn't missed it.

"All I asked you to do was talk with her," Andrew followed up. "Listen to her. And what did you do?"

"What _did_ I do, Andrew? Am I on trial?"

"I'm just saying, Dad. If she's been, well... chummy with you… or you _mistook_ something she did for flirting, you should forget it. People lose perspective when upsetting things happen." Andrew paused then to watch his father – hoping to see if the words struck home. "Maybe seeing her all torn up made you feel... well, _protective,_ but you must see it would be a mistake."

Clearly distressed, but unwilling to give in to the emotion, Christopher took the time to reposition his hat and torture the inside of his lip before he spoke further. "You do know, Andrew, that I'm nearly 50 years old?" Foyle froze there and then sized up the ground. It had cost him, hurt him, to say _that_ little truth out loud. "I've been through two world wars now. I've been married. Widowed. Raised a child on my own. But if you really feel it necessary to explain things to me..."

His son's eyes widened with a bit of shock. Clearly, he had expected his father to be more reassuring and less agitated. Andrew had obviously wanted to hear a denial that anything romantic could be taking place.

"I'm only saying..." the young man tried again.

"Every now and then, Andrew - since we are dispensing advice - listening or merely saying nothing are the wiser, kinder tactics." Christopher walked on, leaving Andrew standing there.

"Dad?" the younger man called out as he worked to catch up. "Look, I'm sorry. It's just, I'm nothing short of confused over Sam."

"I find that a daily occurrence of late," Christopher muttered.

They trudged on in silence, Andrew warily eying his father with every third step.

When they finally found themselves in the full light of the foyer of the house in Steep Lane, Foyle knew he could not take the look on his son's face for one more minute.

He sighed quite audibly. "One question, Andrew. Pick it carefully. You get to ask me one question about... this whole thing. And I will try to answer it. Then we are done discussing this."

Christopher immediately knew that he'd been wrong when he had silently consoled himself earlier. Things _could_ get worse. Because his son's indignation was turning to _pity_ over the quiet anguish Christopher was wearing.

He knew he had handed Andrew a hell of a quandary. Certainly, the young man could ask, "Do you love her?" but that would not tell him if his father would do anything about it; whether he would pursue a relationship at all.

Andrew might even ask if his father had slept with her. Because his over-active imagination did seem to have run that far. But that wouldn't tell Andrew everything, either. And it would only earn him his father's anger.

In the end, Foyle thought he saw in his son's expression some empathy for the older man's situation. Andrew shook his head and asked quietly, "What are you going to do?"

"I don't know. I'm not being evasive, Andrew. I really just..." Foyle gave up.

"Does she fancy herself in love with you? Is that the problem?"

There was a rueful laugh then. A bitter shake of Foyle's head. "You are over your limit of questions."

Christopher could see that the answer did not satisfy. And suddenly he was ready to make a concession. Something that would put the conversation **- **and them - to bed for the night. "Sam and I... We have done a bit of talking about things... personal things, and I think that just made it all a bit awkward, suddenly. Can you understand that?" he concluded gently.

Misleading Andrew was not what Christopher had wanted to do. But there was the strong likelihood, as unsettled as things were between him and Sam, that it would all end quite badly and would best be forgotten.

Foyle knew that Sam didn't need Andrew explaining life to her right now, any more than Christopher did. He hoped what he had told Andrew would satisfy him enough that he would leave Sam alone, until those involved knew what was what.

It hadn't been but twelve hours ago that Christopher had allowed himself to feel that lovely full-in-the-chest exuberance that comes with holding a woman close. That thrill that comes with pressing not-at-all-delicately to her. But he felt so desperately empty now, as he faced Andrew.

There was an unhappy reality to face. That anything between the pair of them was all quite untested. Built on sand and wishes. Fostered by that blessed blind optimism the young, those like Sam, have.

Just seeing the pitying look on Andrew's face had forced him to remember _that,_ certainly.


	7. Chapter 7

_A/N: Hello! I am so glad you folks continue to read this stuff. _

_This one felt very, very odd from the get go. The humor goes a little to the flamboyant, perhaps? (I should let you decide.) I sent it off to dancesabove and offered to have a second go — a total rewrite. She said not to. So, blame her if you find this too strange :)_

_Then I punished her by sending it back again with changes! So, I thank her doubly._

_Really, I am a pain. And I go unpunished! As a result of her edits, I even got to have a chat about the subjunctive with a man in his underoos._ _ It has been a very, very strange day. Perhaps I am just passing that strangeness on._

* * *

Christopher pulled the door open rather vigorously in response to Sam's knock on Sunday afternoon. It was as if he'd been lying there in wait for her.

She looked badly startled.

"What's the matter, Sam?"

"I had rather expected Andrew." _Because the door nearly came off the hinges, _she left unsaid_._

"He's busy inspecting my larder."

Sam laughed, seeming much more like her old self.

She then found it odd that Foyle came outside instead of letting her in. He closed the door and joined her on the front steps, evidently preferring the cold and the chaperoning of the neighborhood to being with her in the company of his son.

He reached to put a hand at her hip just quickly. Signaling so plainly and needfully that he wanted her to kiss him.

But she didn't.

_Why were they stuck like this – outside?_ she was left to wonder.

"Andrew suspects something. Thinks... I don't know," Christopher began, his hand now pressed to his head.

"He thinks you aren't yourself?" she wisecracked.

"I'm not sure that would be a complaint. It might be an improvement – if I weren't who I've been." His honest, wavering smile then was among the most lovely things she'd ever seen.

"I don't have very many complaints," she whispered back. "About the man you've been since you've returned." She waited to see how the laden words would sit with him.

But he dodged her meaning. "You know, obviously… well... how much I enjoy you." _This isn't going well,_ he thought. And one look at Sam told him he was right about that.

"You... _enjoy_ me?"

"That I enjoy being with you."

Then she actually said the words that he had thought out loud.

"Dear God, Christopher. This isn't going well."

"You know that I am..."

"Confused?" she suggested, when his sentence lost its way.

"Yes." Actually, that hadn't been what he was going to say, but it fit. And seemed to satisfy her.

"Because I told you things could be uncomplicated. And then I admitted I was in love with you?"

"I wouldn't have taken advantage of that offer. You _know_..."

"I know," she assured him quickly.

"If you didn't love me... If it was just that you were getting over things and deciding I was the way to do that, then I could... be a certain way... Keep things... Wait..."

She shook her head, decidedly not understanding what was going on. "But I've told you that I love you. Are you going to let me know where we stand now?" She was far too afraid to be hopeful.

"I don't change course easily. It's not that I'm pessimistic...

"You sound it, just now," she cut in gently.

"I'm cautious. Worried, _for_ you. Not about you. And a bit... _plodding_, I suppose, when it comes to change. Not that I like that word."

"Steady is better," she supplied, mentally flogging herself for complicating an already-botched conversation.

"You've been the best change, Sam. Since I've been back... But good policemen are... _steady_ like that. Almost unmovable. There has to be the preponderance of evidence. And I..."

The noise from the house shocked them both. The door had popped open and Andrew now stood there, surveying them quizzically.

"And you _are_ a marvelous policeman, truly," Sam concluded to Christopher. She smiled at Andrew and then squeezed by him shamelessly to get into the house without waiting for a proper invitation.

Andrew just whispered, "Dad?" as if a tad worried for the man's sanity. "What was there you needed to do out _here_?"

Sam leaned back out the door. "On my honor, Andrew," Sam said, sounding a trifle harsh, "we were discussing the best attributes of truly successful policemen."

"No." Doubt seemed to be Andrew's predominant expression of late.

"It's the lack of job," Sam suggested, at a whisper. She caught the younger man by the jumper and tugged to bring him back over the threshold.

Andrew took the hint and followed Sam along the corridor towards the kitchen. "Have you seen the mass of tins dad brought back from America?" he asked, as if there were nothing strange at all about their visit so far.

"No!" Sam said, eager to chase the previous conversation away.

"He must have crammed things in awfully tight to get all that back. It's lovely."

Christopher was red in the face when he appeared at last in the kitchen doorway. It might have been the cold, or the disastrous conversation.

He cleared his throat. And to Sam it was as if a skipping gramophone were being firmly set back on track. "Let's have dinner in," he suggested confidently now. "There are a few potatoes in the bottom cupboard there, Andrew. Sam, why don't you settle on the meat. There's ham and..."

She did not wait to hear any more. It would have spoiled half the fun of scouring the newly stocked shelves Andrew had talked about.

"Ooooh. Right-ho," she said with a grin, as she disappeared into the tiny room off the kitchen.

The pull Christopher felt to follow her was inexplicably strong. And his response – his lack of resistance – was, he knew, shameful, really.

"Get the kettle, would you, Andrew?" And with no further preamble, Christopher walked into the pantry as well.

God help him, he wanted to close the door. Kiss her neck. To feel her arch against him brazenly. To have her confidently push off his braces – as she only had in his fantasies.

But here he was – chaperoned by his son, if not by his insecurities and fears.

Sam watched him watching her. Saw his eyes light on her mouth, her chest, her hips. His eyes travelled back to hers then, and she knew she had quite unconsciously licked her lips at that inopportune moment.

"Oh... Dear," she said. Just that. And his crooked smile told her she was most assuredly blushing.

_And_ that he understood the general gist of what her comment probably meant.

Foyle smiled. _You only love me for my larder,_ he wanted to say. He wanted that comfortable, warm, settled banter.

He was very nearly ready to let himself believe that she loved him, but he still wanted to have her find him clever, witty and flirtatious.

As of today, it might be asking too much that she find him sane.

He stepped a bit closer; then visibly fell apart. Just a little. "You know, don't you?" he whispered.

Her mouth opened to answer him. But it was his son he heard next.

"I vote for the fruit, if anyone is listening," Andrew called out from the kitchen.

/ / /

Andrew volunteered to walk her home, and in a voice that was a tad too eager.

"You have to pack, don't you?" his father wondered, pulling up his sleeve to check his watch. "Catch that train in another hour or so?"

"It's just the one bag. And it's packed, Dad," the suspicious man said. "Besides, the walk will be nice; I'll be just sitting on the train after that."

Christopher knew full well his nod of agreement had a touch of a grimace to it.

"I'll see you tomorrow, then," Sam told her former boss, as Andrew helped her on with her coat.

"Well, if you have the time. You needn't..."

Sam's look was worried, then. Questioning. And he knew he was not about to get a kiss goodnight after that. Even if Andrew had not been standing guard. But then surely she understood that it was Andrew's scrutiny that had made him say what he had.

Foyle knew how the rest of this evening would go – even if nothing could be done but let it play out. Andrew would interrogate Sam during their walk, and then confront Christopher when he got back to the house.

So the detective decided to settle in with a whiskey and let things take whatever course they might.

… . …

His son looked unhappy when he returned. But in surreptitiously studying him while taking another sip, Foyle decided that Andrew was unhappy _not_ about something he had learned, but because he had failed to learn what he had hoped to.

"Did she fail to confess all her sins then, Andrew?"

"What?"

Andrew sat himself on the couch. Christopher swallowed hard as the memory of lying there with Sam surged to the fore, but he managed to keep to the conversation at hand.

"You wanted to get her alone to ask her something. That was my guess. And you look as if you haven't got whatever answer you wanted."

"Well, I will tell you that it would be nice if at least _one_ of you did not feel it necessary to lie to me."

Christopher smiled then, and tried hard not to look as if he were gloating. But he _was_ rather pleased that Sam had managed to put Andrew off. He could imagine there had been a stinging riposte or two, and not a drop of information divulged.

Of course, Christopher thought, he could also tell Andrew the unlikely truth in a voice pitched with pained sarcasm. And he could have _that_ rejected as an unfunny joke:

'_I pinned her to the couch, Andrew. Right there, where you are sitting. God, the lovely noise she made as I kissed her throat... I haven't wanted a woman that badly _– _**loved**__ a woman —__'_

"Are you all right, Dad?"

Christopher sighed. He was not anything close to 'all right.'

Loving Sam was easy. But having things go right was something altogether different, he knew. And there sat his son, his worry and his objections written on his face.

Reality and a well-meaning Andrew were the biggest foes to his burgeoning relationship with Sam, the slightly-less-than-sober man decided. At the moment, it was his son who was taking the most out of him.

"I'm fine. Fine." Foyle cleared his throat. Next he closed his eyes and stretched his neck quickly. "Andrew," he said calmly, his eyes re-focusing on his son.

"What's going on, Dad?"

Tiredly then, the words poured out of the elder man. "What's going on, I think, is that the two of us are wondering at what point any right to privacy would be applicable here. I can't think that I was ever this diligent in hounding you for details about who _you_ were spending time with."

"But Sam—"

"Don't." _Don't you think I know this might not work, Andrew? Do you think I'm so blind that I haven't considered the odds? The risks? Every roadblock we'll encounter?_

_And you would really urge me not to take the chance? God help you when you believe yourself handed __**your**__ last, best chance at happiness._

There was a wounded silence until Christopher rallied. "Sam is an adult, Andrew. I enjoy being with her. She enjoys being with me."

"What are you _really_ saying, Dad?"

"That there is nothing more that matters, and nothing more to say."


	8. Chapter 8

_A/N: This is a complete rewrite. And it contains a major alteration. I just could not be cruel any longer. I was set to post this without the last bit. I changed my mind this morning. So glad I slept on this. Even the long-suffering dancesabove has not seen the bit at the end. But then she deserves surprises too._

* * *

Her knock came the next morning and he ran a hand over his hair one last time. Tortured the inside of his cheek in anticipation.

Thank God, she met him with her smile. He felt his face crease, he was so relieved to see her.

There was her warm hand to his chest then. Once she was inside. Once she had confirmed that Andrew was gone.

But there was no kiss.

As his hand reached to take hold of her waist, he wondered at himself; that he had become so needful of her.

"I found I had the time. If that suits?" she said. There was a touch of a dig at him for his off-putting comment the evening before.

"Sam..." he tried, absently pulling a shamed face.

"Why wouldn't you want Andrew to know that we are..."

"Why _would_ I want him to know? Could we give this time, Sam?"

_Time? I'll give you all the time in the world_, she thought to herself. And Sam, being far more wily than Foyle was confident, knew not to say that out loud.

There was the forgiveness of her expression and then there was, for him, no holding back.

His arms wound around her, and she kissed him happily.

He looked at her, lost his place. The world lost its hold on him. And he kissed her again. Let his hands run over her in search of the solace and warmth of her.

Borrowing her surety.

Because things went wrong. All the time. People loved each other, believed it was all possible, and relationships still just ended.

So, he couldn't quite tell her that he loved her. Not off-handedly. He didn't know how to when his practical mind worried over the odds of them still being together a year from now. He didn't want to have a conversation that required God-knows-how-long in the minutes she could spare this morning.

He was cautious. It was who he was. And being Sam, being so young and resilient, she couldn't even see that this might not work. It would take time to explain to her... yes, he loved her. But he had no job; did not know where he would end up . And even if he'd had those answers, he had no desire to have things self-destruct in front of Andrew and all of Hastings. To bring that notoriety on Sam—after a failed engagement. Neither of them needed Andrew's 'I-told-you-so's,' should things simply not work.

He admitted, too, that he had enough male pride that he had little desire to play the old fool in a failed endeavor with such a wide audience. It had only been a week, this new "this." They would know so much more in another week or two. He could explain that. Tonight.

"I'm not imagining this, am I?" she asked anxiously. "Things are good. It all feels so good." But if she had really believed nothing was wrong, then she would not have brought it up and wanted the reassurance, they both knew.

"Come over for dinner tonight. I'll cook." He was so close his words tickled her cheek.

He was sending her off, but she didn't want to go just yet. Not without the most basic things settled.

"I've been holding my breath all weekend, it seems, Christopher. Please, can't we pick up the conversation where we left off?" She paused then, as if waiting for him to steel himself. "I love you, Christopher. And I don't know if you can believe that. I don't know that you trust a woman who just ended—"

"I trust you, Sam. I have always believed you—even when I shouldn't have."

She nodded. She had to admit she had the uncanny ability to get Christopher Foyle to agree to things. Even things that turned sour. And dangerous.

Gently then, she asked him, "Do you think this is one of those times? When you shouldn't believe me?"

"I won't talk myself out of being with you, Sam. But..."

"But you don't know that it will go any better than me getting myself locked in a room with a bomb, or..."

He groaned even as she trailed off. "God, don't remind me."

"I've been honest with you..."

"Painfully honest," he tried to joke. But it was far from a joke, she saw. Sam felt she finally had a true assessment of how Christopher felt about _something _now.

Sam let out a weary, anguished-sounding sigh. "It's ruined things, hasn't it? _I've_ ruined things. Not by telling you. I _had_ to tell you everything. But you're disappointed or angry... over Adam. That I would sleep with him."

Christopher pressed a hand to his head then, in a reflex she recognized and in this moment feared.

Her... _with Adam. _Itwas something he had steadfastly tried to avoid even thinking about. And Sam had to dig it up. Pull it back in front of them. Examine it in excruciating detail. No bloody minced words.

"I have no right to be upset…" He winced, pronounced the words as mechanically as possible, it seemed to her.

She indulged herself with an eye-roll. "Does that really work, Christopher? You tell yourself you have no right to be angry, and it just doesn't happen? If you care about me, if you want to be with me... one way or another, I would think you would have a position on this. And if we are voting, I think you _do_ get to be angry."

He didn't know what to respond to first. That she could think his feelings were nothing more than desire heaped onto their genial working relationship? Or the notion that they would vote on his caveman-like emotions over Adam?

His jaw was drawn so taut, the words barely came out. "You sat here. Right here," he said, pointing to what had become 'her' chair. "And you were so hurt. Lost. I didn't let myself think about how _I_ felt, because you needed me to be..."

"I needed you to understand. To not judge. Or to at least pretend that you could do all of that. To get past it. You were that stand-up fellow, and you thought I was… well... off the rails. But it isn't the sort of thing we can get past that easily, is it?"

"I couldn't talk about how I felt about you, not when you were more hurt and vulnerable than you had ever been. You didn't tell me you loved me or wanted... wanted more than that _affair._ And now..."

"Now you need to think about it, maybe?" she asked softly. "I would understand. With everything I told you, if you were feeling the need to be a bit... Lord, I don't know... patrician? Victorian?"

"Oh, steady on!" He had a lot more color suddenly. But he still was not saying anything. And he didn't want to. Couldn't they just carry on? Couldn't they leave this? In a few years, he was sure it would not bother him at all.

"Give me something, Christopher. Say _something_. God, I have tried to be patient. You said you would not have an affair with me... but all of _this._ Being with you, hiding it. It feels ridiculously close to having one. I have tried not to force the issue, and I just have no idea what is going on inside your head..."

He had been prepared for her to deny how his age factored in this relationship—not to assign him to the past so easily. He had expected her to want to avoid Adam as a subject, and now she wanted to dissect it? She wanted him to 'give her something?'

He started and abandoned three sentences.

And then he kissed her. Hard. She was against the wall of his kitchen suddenly. It was all-consuming to her. The feel of him. The sound of his breaths, and hers. He moved against her as only a lover would. And she gasped and pulled at his clothing to hold him there. To claim him one way, if she could not in another. But this, this ability to push against each other, wouldn't solve a thing, they both seemed to realize in the same moment. He ducked his head, pushed back from her. Her hands dropped from around him.

"Sometimes," he whispered tensely, "it's as if I can still smell him on you. It was so recent. That's part of it. The last time I saw you before I left, you were with him. The vision I had of you for _months_ then. You. Him on the dock. Your arm..."

"My arm around him," she supplied sadly, quietly.

"You've worn that same damn cardigan twice this week... You think I object because of some Victorian code of morals? I object because _you_ were with him. _You_..."

"You're _jealous_. Jealous, not disgusted? Why couldn't you say?"

"How could you not you see?"

"But I didn't love him." Sam tried to parse it all, to understand from his point of view. "Is that worse, Christopher? That I didn't love him? I _thought_ I did... I thought I could... _You_ were unavailable. Just _patently_ unavailable. Right there." She reached forward and let her hand hover near his sleeve. "So near I could touch. But clearly, clearly never meant to be mine. And I finally convinced myself I was in love with someone else. I just wanted to have a normal life. A husband and…" She bent forward, her hands clasped in front of her face. Her eyes closed. But reality was there in the face of the kitchen clock. "Oh, bloody hell. I've got to get to work."

For a second or two he just watched her go. He was paralyzed. He was an idiot, he decided. And being the more determined one to make it to the front door suddenly, he caught her easily.

He turned her. Kissed her softly to tame and still her. Before she could ask a thing he told her, "I love you. I have loved you, Sam."

"Oh, truly?" she breathed with nothing short of complete relief.

"Yes. I wanted to wait. To _explain_ it all. To talk about it, rationally."

"Talk about loving me... but rationally?" She was almost laughing at him or at least at the notion of love requiring a rational touch.

"I want to discuss my finding a job, the likelihood that it will not be in Hastings. I wanted to talk about courting you, and what your parents will think, and what your friends will say," he rattled off. "And the whole lot of waiters and shopkeepers that will roll their eyes at me. Or how many of Adam's friends we are likely to run into. There is the possibility that spending too much time with me might make you insane. And the confession that I will never do more than waltz with you and hate it — patiently — should you dance with anyone else."

"All that?" she teased and soothed in the same moment. "Why didn't you just say... that you were jealous and you were worried?"

He opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. She really had summed up quite nicely.

"There is still a lot to sort..." he whispered intently.

She groaned at his pessimism, but managed not to say anything.

"I'll walk you to work," he said then with a smile.

"Mmm. Lovely."


	9. Chapter 9

"What is it?" Sam wanted to know, before he had even taken her coat that evening.

_Because, dear God, __**something**_ wa_s up._ It was easy for Sam to tell – not that just _any_body would have noticed the awkward hold some issue had on poor Foyle.

He actually winced before he began. "My brother-in-law rang today. Because there is a job that really should have gone to someone else. I've been putting things off. And..." he faded off.

"And?" She had jumped in before realizing his face was finishing his statement for him. "No. I see." She put some distance between them reflexively. "Sorry. I hadn't let myself think this all through – even though you'd mentioned it before. That the job you looked for wouldn't be here. He rang about a job in _London_."

_That's why you look so guilty, _she concluded to herself.

"I'm not trying to get away from you."

"But you are, nonetheless," she pointed out with a make-the-most-of-it sense of humor and a raise of her eyebrows.

"I feel badly about this. Don't make it worse, Sam," he pleaded miserably.

"So?" she asked, knowing there was more.

"So... I leave tomorrow for a few days. And that's made me realize... well, I know I haven't been that… well-behaved," he tried to explain as he backed away slightly.

_More of why you feel guilty_, she surmised.

She almost laughed, but it all felt too dismal. "I was wondering when this would happen."

"What?"

"I've been wondering just when you would feel compelled to spoil things by consulting your punishing sense of what things _should_ be like." She leaned against the wall. Not in sadness – just with a sort of fatigue.

"Because the way we've been since you came home has been fine by me," she continued after a deep breath. "Do you feel badly because you've kissed me the way you've _wanted to_ instead of the way you thought you should? Or you're worried you've been all-too-forward, given that we don't know how this will end?" She paused, prepared to size him up, to read the answers in his face.

She sighed.

He nodded.

There was little to deny in what she'd said, he thought. She had it exactly. He had let himself be swept up. Before, when he had dwelled only on her last visit or her next, he had almost let himself forget that finding a job was rather more than just a distant idea.

But the spell of the past week was broken now. There was a certain reality to face.

He had behaved in a way he never would have got away with, had her parents lived in town. And he'd felt foolish and rather guilty about all of it ever since his conversation with Commander Howard. Because, as Sam would put it, that little talk _had_ imposed upon his happy fantasy a punishing sense of what things more properly should be like.

But then, Foyle was good at guilt. Guilt was a skill long-honed as a sole parent.

He looked at his shoes.

"You can't think I would be happier about you leaving if you hadn't... well, been so wonderfully forward," she told him.

"You're better at all this than I am, Sam."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

God, he really was a hack at this. He rubbed at his temple and managed to look contrite without even trying. "You're better at knowing... what's right. What to say. I've been alone a long time. Not that I've ever been..."

She cut him off. "It's all right, Christopher." What she had wanted to tell him was that she needed to hear about the _future_. Not the past. But she could see from the look of him that there would be no resolving that tonight.

He was still trying to find his feet when it came to his heart, Sam thought.

"Let me take you out," he offered.

"Let's stay in," Sam countered gently. She smiled. Touched his sleeve. "I don't want you trying to act differently about things. And you won't let me kiss you the way I want to if we are out." She moved closer to him. Whispered, sounding far too unsure. "Kiss me now, Christopher."

And he did. But her stomach tightened over how sad and tentative his kisses seemed.

Knowing he was leaving the next morning, it took all of her will power not to cling or push at him for declarations that evening. All she could think about was how many times a month they might possibly see each other once he was in London. Was there someone she might stay with there? How often would he consent to come back to Hastings? Would he even want her showing up in London and demanding all his free time on a weekend?

Not bringing up these worries was the most strenuous act of patience Samantha Stewart ever remembered. There was a certain relief in having the night over.

Foyle walked her home to the quiet little street where she lived. And pulled her closer as they stood at the hidden entrance around the corner of the converted house. He had suggested that she not see him off at the station the next morning. So, this was their goodbye.

Regrets worked at him. Worry worked at her.

"I'm not very good at all this. I don't know at all the right thing to say," he stumbled.

He bit his lip, lost. He could read Keats or Byron. But he had no chance of ever sounding like them.

"Really, Christopher? Don't you know all you need to say?"

He pulled her in, hugged her to his chest. And registered how much he needed that... and her. "I love you," he whispered finally, with a certain simple realization.

She laughed. Petted at his face. "You're perfect at this."

Sam told him that she loved him and kissed him sweetly, deeply. She surprised him then, by telling him that he should go. "I'll say the wrong thing," she murmured, "if we stand here any longer." Because she wanted to let him know that she had loved him for so long now, and that she would simply always love him.

Given too much more of this goodbye, she would beg him to spend the night with his arms around her. Beg him to not say this goodbye at all.

/ / /


	10. Chapter 10

**_A/N: Finally, I am throwing up a chapter. I have reached that middle slog and the shreds of plot mock me whenever I sit down to write. Sometimes I come up with what I think is the most delicious bits in the middle of the night - then when I read them in the morning I am rather disappointed in them. All of which is just to say, this did not come easy. Thanks so much for reading and for the kind reviews. _**

**_Thanks to Selmak for helping me guide the plot and to dancesabove for the use of her talented eyeballs._**

* * *

Richard Baker was the boyish-but-graying manager who greeted Foyle in the new offices of the International Criminal Police Commission. He was easily Foyle's age – plus five years – but he quite contentedly refused to act it. With a nearly-annoying spring in his step, he launched into a rapid tour of the space. "Not that the layout here will matter that much to you," the chipper man quickly said to Foyle as they breezed through.

Christopher's eyebrows arched over that comment, but he merely followed on. The pair finally settled into the man's office, and from the very first moment Foyle registered unease in trying to make conversation. He found his mind straying as he wondered how much time he might possibly need to sort things with Sam – as if that type of thing could be scripted and run to its conclusion forcibly.

Life was not a constable, to be ordered about.

Baker was talking about the work at hand, but Foyle was distractedly wondering whether Sam might know someone with whom she could stay if she visited him on weekends. The train timetable ran through head unbidden. He pictured himself on Friday evenings, rumbling back to Hastings… her, meeting his train...

Christ. What had come over him?

He pulled at his trouser leg in an uncharacteristic fit of nerves, like a schoolboy caught at woolgathering. Because he suddenly felt _exactly_ like an errant little boy.

Foyle nodded, forcing himself to stay with the conversation. He smiled as Baker went on. This job _was_ a gem. The duties as described sounded wonderful: compiling data and trends reports, gathering intelligence aimed at sussing out street elements _before_ they were organized. But more, there would still be primary investigations on cases at a national and international level.

_Lord, Sam would love this sort of excitement_, he thought.

_Sam?_ _Dear God._ _Head in the game, Foyle! Head in the game._

The important question came to him then. _Where_ would he be doing these investigations and this coordinating?

All at once he felt his stomach drop out, because he knew the answer before he heard it from Baker.

"There are teams in place already in Poland. Germany. France," Baker supplied. "Working with local authorities. England's resources are quite necessary, as you can imagine. What we don't have is someone to coordinate."

"To coordinate all of those efforts. Across sites. From the continent, primarily," Foyle finished for the man.

"Exactly! We need someone who is _involved_. Hands-on. Spending some time here, but mostly at the sites on the continent. I don't need to tell you what an important job this is. Or what an important time this is for this type of work."

"Yes," was all Foyle managed to say.

"You'll need some time to think about it," Baker suggested, efficiently.

"Yes. Yes. Thank you." Christopher stood. Grabbed his coat and hat from the rack and walked silently, head down, through the office door. Baker walked just behind him as he passed through the reception area.

"No," Foyle said. It was a sudden and strange sort of non sequitur as he turned back again.

"_No,_ Foyle? You mean you don't need to think about it?"

"No. I don't need to think about it. Because, no, I can't take the position."

"Do you know what you are doing, Foyle?"

There was a tight, pained smile. A wash of deja vu at the conversation, and something new as well. A quiet reply from him then: "I will have to hope so."

/ /

After his meeting with Baker there was no ducking the conversation that he needed to have with his brother-in-law, Commander Charles Howard.

The men met as prearranged, in front of a restaurant. Once inside they settled into their quiet table. "You've picked a place known as much for its Scotch as its food, Christopher. Dare I ask how things are going?" the naval officer teased.

The comment was meant light-heartedly, but Foyle knew he looked noticeably at ends. He had no idea how to explain it, so he merely shrugged and threw his napkin into his lap.

"Christopher? You sent me rather strongly worded letters from America. You seemed desperate for something here in London. Something _consuming_, I think you said. I find it for you. And still you look like that?"

"Things have become... complicated." Foyle found himself actually squirming as he replied.

"What does that mean?" Howard asked, sounding a little short.

"There's a woman."

The naval officer leaned back in his chair and studied the man across from him. He was granted some time to recover as they watched their drink orders placed on the table. There was a wry half-smile on the commander's lips as he spoke again. "Two things. First, these types of conversations _never_ go well in my book, and second... well, that is not at all what I thought you would say." '_Ever,'_ was the unspoken word.

With a determined sort of look, Foyle plowed on.

"At any rate, that is the complication. When I was so eager for you to find me something, I was eager to avoid her. Avoid that whole situation."

"And now, are you running in the opposite direction? Toward her?" Charles asked rather cautiously. "Or are you just... over her?"

Foyle would not answer that, but he did say, "She was involved with someone else when I headed to America."

Charles shook his head. "And you lingered over there as long as you could before coming home? And the plan was to drown yourself in some demanding job, here, well away from Hastings, once you were back?"

"Something like that," Christopher equivocated. After another moment of suffering through his brother-in-law's expression, he added uncomfortably, "You needn't enjoy this quite so much."

The larger man cleared his throat and reigned in his cheerfulness. "No. No. Of course not."

The result only made Christopher feel more foolish. "The short of it is that we have been seeing quite a lot of each other."

Foyle availed himself of his drink and leaned away, as if escaping the topic could be that easy.

"So, you aren't going to take this damn plum of a job, are you?" To Christopher's surprise, the commander seemed more amused than angry. "God, I hope this is not some snap decision you'll come to regret."

"I'm sorry for the work you put into it..."

"That doesn't matter. Please, Christopher," he said, dismissing the apology. "You are telling me this woman is more important to you than all that. _That_ is the news. I'm terribly happy for you, or I might be if you looked a little happier about it yourself. Really, all I want to know is, when can I meet her?"

Christopher looked bemused then, and tortured the inside of his lip before answering. "You have done. Although just in passing, on a trip a few years back when we came in to London."

The other man was plainly afraid to guess.

"Samantha Stewart," Foyle said, chasing the words down with a small, tight swallow of whiskey.

"Your driver," Charles said flatly, after a moment of poorly concealed shock.

The other man's mood had decidedly changed, Christopher noted. "Yes." He decided to be still more candid. "And she wasn't merely seeing someone else when I left for America. She was engaged to a young man in Hastings."

His brother-in-law seemed to mull the situation over, twisting his head a bit in thought. "Engaged, you say? Lord, that's a bit sticky. Also, isn't this the girl that _Andrew_..." the man led, uncomfortably.

"Yes," Foyle admitted, a tad pained.

The commander waved off any further explanation, gallantly trying to act as if it were unnecessary. But it was obvious that the whole situation bothered him. "No. No. Too right," Charles said quickly, in response to the unease that had arisen. He cleared his throat and tried to move the conversation forward. "Why, if you eliminate all the women your son or mine chatted up during the war, there would be none left," he stumbled.

"Well, none under forty," came the detective's doleful but game response.

There was a long, painful silence then. "You have to drop that Christopher, that attitude, _if_ you are serious about her. If..."

_If. _

_Was the comment meant to suggest it would be preferable _–_ understandable even _– _if he just wasn't that serious?_

"You think this another in a line of quick, less-than-politic decisions I've made?" Foyle asked, a bit defensively.

Howard's whole manner now seemed sadly designed to console. "No. Not quite, Christopher. But... All right then, what are your plans? You have no job now. You've alienated Richard Baker, and by extension half the people in that community. And there is an enthusiastic young woman back in Hastings who has broken off an engagement and is now most likely waiting to hear how you see the future working out."

That description of events, calmly laid out as a newsreader might, was the same reality Foyle knew he was living. Why, then, did the scenario sound so very different, so very unlikely to succeed, when put into honest words?

The whisper of doubt in Foyle's head turned to a clamor.

Gently, almost piteously now, Commander Howard lowered his voice before he asked, "Have you thought about this? Just how _do_ you see this working, Christopher?"

/ / /

_note: The International Criminal Police Commission would come to be called Interpol._


	11. Chapter 11

A/N: Thanks for reading this story of mine! I would not be here without you folks. Thanks once again to danceabove as well.

* * *

When Foyle turned the corner on his walk from the train station, he immediately saw her. Sam was on his steps, sitting there. Head down. Which hardly seemed like Sam.

"Hello?"

"Oh, thank God," she breathed as she stood.

"How long have you..."

She cut in quickly, "It doesn't matter."

Meeting her on the steps, he let his free hand fall briefly at her waist. "What will the neighbors say?" he mused, trying to make things lighter than they obviously were.

She shook her head. "I really don't care." There was a worried smile on her face that he could not ignore.

"Come in, then." But his eyes no longer met hers. He was clearly not himself.

Sam fidgeted as he pushed the door open. She'd been patient for weeks. For years, if she let herself think about all the time she had spent beside him. She knew she couldn't be patient now.

"You have to tell me. Please?" she said, once they had made it as far as the front hall.

But the detective was distracted by something else. "How did you know to wait for me?" Foyle asked as he threw his coat and hat down across a table.

"Andrew. I rang him, and he said you were getting back today."

As curious as Christopher was to hear about _that_ conversation, there were bigger things to consider. "And how did _he_ know?" the unhappily chagrined policeman wanted to know.

"His uncle. But that was all Andrew knew... just that you were headed back. Now, _please_, Christopher," Sam said with rising impatience. "What is the new job like? When do you start?"

"I didn't take the job."

There was a pause then while Sam tried to take that in, while she tried to place the emotion she heard in his voice. "Not yet," she supplemented, warily.

He took her hand to bring her to the front room. Once there, he gave up on the notion of having her sit. She was too agitated even to stand still.

"Things are all... when I made the plans to go to London, I thought it might be a good idea... if this was... tested," he told her.

She looked stunned for a moment; then was suddenly close to boiling over. "Tested?"

"If I was in London, and I only saw you..."

"_That_ was the 'good idea?'" Sam backed away and moved to pull her gloves back on. She eyed him quickly and mercilessly before turning for the door.

"I'm here, Sam." His hand was on her arm. "I have put things rather badly. But the point is, I have said no to the job, and I am _here_," he stressed.

"But part of you wonders if just glibly turning down that job was a good idea."

"Part of me is exceedingly unhappy about not having a job, _yes_," he said, tensely. The gates were open now; he felt it. And after the nearly unbearable meeting he had had with his brother-in-law, he had promised himself these things would get said. "Part of me wonders how this will work between us. What you could see in me."

He paused, seeming pained, and she knew not to interrupt. "I don't always know what possible future there can be given how used to being on my own I am. How used to getting my way I am. Or," he said slowly, deliberately, "how old I am."

"Lord," was all she said in reply. But she seemed like a dam set to burst.

"Well? What?" he demanded.

She shook her head at him. "You are a smart bloke. None smarter, really. But do you _ever_ just turn your blinking head off for a minute and listen to any other part of you?"

He looked uncomfortable. "You know I have."

And she did know that, she admitted. Because they both remembered how he had pinned her to this couch they were standing near, and how he had kissed her almost feverishly in his kitchen.

"Yes. Yes. Of course, you have... but, those would be the times that you ended up apologizing for," she explained, sharply. "While those are the times that give _me_ hope."

How could he explain the difficult, almost oxymoronic notion of middle-aged hopes to someone like Sam? he wondered. He winced, and began to pace, before he finally told her, "I have a lot of practice at not getting my hopes up. It's something I'm rather good at. And, yes, I have put as much distance between myself and my feelings as I could, at times. As much distance between _you_ and _me_ as I could."

Softly now, intently, he told her as his face changed, "It all seemed a very necessary thing at the time. Whether it was wrong or right to do that, it hasn't changed the basic truth. I love you, Sam."

Sam's face lit up at that last statement. "Oh, atta boy," she crooned sweetly as she pulled him in to kiss him gently. "You love me. So, you know this can work. You know this _will_ work." She was not quite sure enough to have that come out as a statement. It had the insecure ring of a question to it.

His silence was less than reassuring in return.

"Could we make a better mess of this?" He scratched at his head, not needing or wanting an answer. "It isn't just that I love you. That was the easy part," he told her. "The only easy part."

The small smile on his lips gave her hope. But that smile was worried, fleeting. Gone, now.

"There is a hard part; that is what you are saying. So, what is it?" Sam said, steeling herself.

"Everything else, if that makes any sense."

"None," a tense Sam assessed.

She nodded and waited for the rest of it. And the infuriating man said nothing.

"Luckily, I'm patient... well, when it comes to you," she tried lightly at last.

Christopher almost laughed. He had to wonder what Commander Howard would make of this young woman and her belief that, if anything, Foyle needed to_ think_ about this less. Not more.

… … …

She was afraid to leave that night. Afraid at how much further his determination might slip by morning if she were not there to encourage things. To hold things, and him, together.

He sensed the strain he was putting on her and so he gave her his best, most well-adjusted smile. "Breakfast, Sam? We can have breakfast in the morning."

She looked confused for a moment. And then entirely too amused. "You don't mean you'd let me stay?" she whispered. "For just a bit there, I thought maybe..."

He cleared his throat. "I meant. We'd see each other again in the morning. Let me walk you home. Don't tempt me."

"Me? I thought you were, well, tempting _me._ Or tempted by me. Or..." She was rattling on at an impressive speed now.

He kissed her. Whispered at her ear then and pushed a bit of her hair behind the other. "You know I love you, but... you want to hear me say that I would..."

"Want me here," she supplied, making that easier for him. "Yes. Is that so wrong, that I would want to know that?"

He was so far out of his depth that he didn't _know_ what was wrong or right in that moment. But he knew how dangerous it was to feel as he did now: that loving Samantha Stewart – and being loved by her – made impossible things so wholly plausible.

So completely necessary.

Which didn't tell him what his brother-in-law had urged him to think about: how would things work?

But it told him what he was sure Sam would say was more important: how much in his _heart_ he wanted this to work.


End file.
